Posts Tagged ‘health care’

Gary Graham

It’s Morning-After In America

by Gary Graham

I awoke this morning with a splitting headache.  As I staggered to the bathroom I blew past the mirror without a glance, fearful of the report.  I hadn’t felt this awful since I can’t remember when.  Though memory eluded me as to the details, I was certain that I had tied on the Mother of All Benders.  As I stared blearily into the commode bowl, I studied it disinterestedly for any and all evidence my stomach contents may have divulged as to just what the hell had happened the previous night.   

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Nothing came to me but more questions.  Satisfied that no further gastric contributions could tell the tale, I rose from the bathroom floor, shrugged unconvincingly and hit the flusher.   What a perfect way to end unseemly encounters.  Flush them. 

I proceeded to weave an unsteady trail down the hallway in the general direction of a coffee pot.  My daughter had arisen before me and FOX News was already drifting in from the other room; Bill Hemmer recounting the latest on the decision to move the admitted 911 terrorists to NYC for trial. 

And then it struck me like a wet trout.  (more…)

Jason Killian Meath

‘So Stoned’ Director’s Health-Care Ad Selected By Obama Celeb Panel

by Jason Killian Meath

A health-care ad, featuring cute little children on a playground reading lines like “I’ll be diagnosed with leukemia and I’ll die,” was winner of a nation-wide competition of ads launched by Obama’s Organizing for America.  The ad was produced and directed by Eric Hurt, a former contestant on the trashy reality show “Temptation Island.”  Hurt’s previous directorial work includes a short film entitled “So Stoned” about 5 drugged-out friends smoking a bong and recounting disgusting stories from their past.  ”So Stoned” suddenly vanished from both Vimeo and FunnyOrDie.com after Obama consultant David Plouffe, announced Hurt’s selection..


The ad was selected out of 1,000 entries, as part of Obama’s “Health Care Reform Video Challenge.”  Ironically, instead of showcasing real people who suffer under the current health-care structure, the judges hand picked an ad that is all showbiz and zero substance.  They chose to go with fake health-care horror stories read by adorable but soppy kid actors — pawns in a political high-stakes game of shocksploitation. These kids obviously don’t have dire health care problems;  they just have showbiz parents who hooked them up with a gig. (more…)

Greg Gutfeld

Daily Gut: ObamaCare Opponents Are All Child Killers

by Greg Gutfeld

So “Organizing for America,” which used to be called “Obama for America,” held a contest to create an ad for health care reform. And they asked “you,” to contribute your ideas. Of course, when they said “you,” they really didn`t mean YOU. They meant the typical left-wing artist they enlisted to film the ads for them! That`s why it`s called propaganda, not art.

Check out the winner.


Look, there’s a bottomless pit of creepiness going on here – but none of it should surprise anyone familiar with leftist propaganda. But here`s a quick summary of the ad, anyway: if you don`t bend over for Obama, you`re going to kill these kids.

Which is yucky, I guess – but underneath this lie is an even more outlandish one: that these artists actually give a crap about kids. What they care about, really, is sucking up to Obama – and the adorable brats are just props to serve that end. (more…)

Patrick Courrielche

Fear, Children, & Video – Ingredients for Obama’s Weapon of Mass Persuasion

by Patrick Courrielche

Fear is a powerful propaganda weapon. But couple fear with the innocence of childhood and you have a hair-triggered nuclear bomb of persuasion. One need only spend fifteen minutes watching the finalists of President Obama’s health reform video contest to experience its influence.

The Health Reform Video Challenge, launched by Obama’s Organizing for America in September, is a contest “to make the best 30-second ad showing why the President’s plan for reform is so critical.” The winning video, selected by a list of Hollywood elites and Obama’s campaign manager David Plouffe, will be the basis for a new television ad that will air across the country delivering a clear message to viewers – children will die if health care reform is not passed. The secondary message is only one Defcon level lower on the fear-o-meter – the parents of sick or injured children will go bankrupt or lose their houses for even the simplest of injuries.


Using children to pluck at the heartstrings of the electorate and further a political agenda is nothing new, but it shifts into the land of Disgustopia when our young are exploited to distort the truth or spread outright falsehoods. The winning video opens with a young boy stating, “A year from now I’ll break my leg and my parents will have to sell our house because we couldn’t afford health care.”

This statement is designed to instill broad fear and disseminate the idea that anyone, even a family faced with the common injury of a broken leg, is susceptible to being thrust from their homes as a consequence of being uninsured. The odds of needing to sell your home to pay for the cost of a broken leg are so remote that it borders on preposterous to use it as an example of why we need reform. House closing costs in almost every scenario would exceed the medical bill, yet this is the video that the President’s organization has selected to justify the need for reform. It’s much easier to sell health care reform if our system is so fractured that a broken leg can expel a family out from under the safety of their roof. (more…)

Michael S. Rulle Jr.

NBC’s ObamaVision: ‘Law and Order’ — ‘This Is Why We Need Health-Care Reform’

by Michael S. Rulle Jr.

NBC’s “Law and Order” is in its 20th season. The economy is weak, so they have devolved to converting White House talking points into weekly shows. Last week, “Doped” was a farcical equivalent of “Damien Thorn meets Karen Silkwood.” Pharmaceutical companies and Doctors are worse than drug cartels. The killers in the previous week’s episode on such cartels were more sympathetic than the health professionals. 

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In the opening scene, a woman with 4 children is driving the wrong way down the West Side Highway (like the Diane Schuler Taconic Parkway horror this summer). Speaking on her cell phone erratically (no “hands free!”), the kids get concerned. She decides it is time to use nasal spray for her allergies, which had been spiked without her knowledge. Flash forward and viewers see two mangled vehicles resulting in seven deaths.  (more…)

Alfonzo Rachel

ZoNation: What Conservatives Are For

by Alfonzo Rachel


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Leigh Scott

The Hidden Truth Behind ‘V’

by Leigh Scott

Like many conservatives, I was intrigued and excited by the promos for ABC’s reboot of one of my favorite mini-series, “V.” Finally, we thought, one of us had infiltrated the system and slipped one by the hippies who run Hollywood.  Even better, we hoped that ABC, in a brash display of “corporate greed” had decided to green-light a series that appeals to the many of us (the majority of the country actually) who are less than enthralled by the hopey changeiness of the current administration.

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Old School Visitor

But alas, it wasn’t meant to be.  As my colleague Jeffrey Jena pointed out, the show’s writer is a devout leftist and Obama supporter.  The show was actually written in 2007, long before David Axelrod and his minions concocted the brilliant marketing campaign that elevated an inexperienced and naive community organizer to the most powerful position in the world.

So, is that it?  Case closed?  Is “V” not an indictment and slam at the “O-mania” that swept the nation?  Far from it.  In fact, the show contains two powerful messages that should warm the hearts of all conservatives and make leftists think twice. (more…)

Alexander Marlow

PelosiCare: More Millionaire Actors Endorse You Losing Your Health Insurance

by Alexander Marlow


As we come down to the wire on Pelosi’s government-run health care bill, look for the left to trot out every possible relic of more prosperous times in a desperate attempt to pass this thing (or at a minimum avoid reading it).  Thus, it’s hardly a surprise Ex-President Josiah Bartlet, the greatest statesmen of our time, as well as Ex-First Lady Betty Rizzo decided to put their 100% approval ratings among likely voters who approve of Martin Sheen and Stockard Channing on the line to support the cause of rationed care.  Bartlett, like so many other Democrat ex-politicians, can’t seem to take the hint that a graceful exit is far preferable to wearing out your welcome.   (more…)

Burt Prelutsky

Burt’s Eye View: Mother Nature and the Left

by Burt Prelutsky

When Barack Obama was campaigning — not that he’s ever stopped — back in 2008, he made a number of promises.  As we all know, like a cad on the make, he was only trying to get us in the sack.  Once he had his way with us, he barely remembered our name, let alone his various vows.

Some of the things he swore to included keeping lobbyists out of his administration, providing five days for the public to review pending legislation and a bi-partisan approach to problem-solving.  Instead, lobbyists, particularly those representing unions, have freer access to the Oval Office than Michelle and the kids.  Not only is the public not given time to digest major legislation, neither are the legislators.  Early on, you may recall, Congress was given less than 24 hours to vote on an 1100-page, trillion dollar, so-called stimulus bill; more recently, when it came to health care, Obama was telling the sheep on Capitol Hill to vote even before an actual bill was written!

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So far, as bi-partisanship is concerned, the Republicans have been banished to Washington’s equivalent of Siberia.  These days, bi-partisanship simply means that  David Axelrod and Rahm Emanuel are in agreement.

There is one promise, however, that Obama has kept.  He vowed transparency, and anyone who can’t plainly see what the rock star and his left-wing groupies (Axelrod, Emanuel, Jeff Jones, Valerie Jarrett, Cass Sunstein, Anita Dunn) are up to is simply spending too much time watching “American Idol” and college football. (more…)

Jeff Varga

Obama Parable?: Brownshirt Lizards Return in ‘V’

by Jeff Varga

This is my first “coming out” article as a conservative and Christian because Hollywood is taking its last breath before dying and I don’t really have much to lose. I’m a director, but made a good living for about seven years compositing visual effects. That is, until I was blacklisted for objecting to anti-Christian and anti-American propaganda that I was forced to listen to 8 hours a day by 90% of the people around me. But that’s a story for a different time.

Today, I’m writing to comment on “V,” as I’m sure many viewers missed the parallels of the questions raised in the show regarding our own politics today.

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Hollywood script-writing 101 classes tell writers, “If you want to write a good script, write what you know.” Kenneth Johnson, creator of the original “V” series and story writer of the resurrected version, apparently knows his history. For disclosure purposes, I have met him and visited his home many years ago, but don’t know really much about him other than he has a good grasp on good and evil and human, albeit lizard, nature. (Possible political jab that the Left is slimy … even though lizards are not?)

What completely blows my mind is that all these comic book and sci-fi loving fans embrace and cheer for the underground rebels and immediately suspect the Visitors as wolves in sheep’s clothing (or lizards, in this case). So why is it so impossible for these same fans to see who the real-life lizards are? The aliens arrive and we don’t know anything about them other than they all look like celebrities too old for the CW Network, and they come offering hope and in the shows own words: “universal health care.” No, President Obama, nor Harry Reid, nor Nancy Pelosi didn’t arrive in a spaceship (or did they… hmmm?). No, they came with years of very questionable history behind them that anyone not rushing to embrace the empty promise of “hope” and “change” would immediately see. (more…)

Stage Right

Big Hollywood Report Card: NEA Chairman Landesman’s First 12 Weeks

by Stage Right

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When Broadway Producer/Theatre Owner Rocco Landesman took the reins of the National Endowment of the Arts last August, he told the NY Times:

“I wouldn’t have come to the N.E.A. if it was just about padding around in the agency,” he said, and worrying about which nonprofits deserve more funds. “We need to have a seat at the big table with the grown-ups. Art should be part of the plans to come out of this recession.  If we’re going to have any traction at all, there has to be a place for us in domestic policy.”

An odd assertion considering the job description of the role he’s filling at this non-partisan, independent, government agency is, basically to “Worry about which nonprofits deserve more funds“.  Seriously, that’s the job, always has been.  And when one reads the original legislation creating the agency Landesman now runs, there is nothing to be found about being a part of domestic policy.  But, the same party who can read “Promote the General Welfare” in our Constitution and re-interpret it to mean that Barbara Boxer can decide which doctor I can visit, can easily over-reach with the NEA legislation too, I suppose. (more…)

Gary Graham

PelosiCare: Liars, Luddites and Leprechauns

by Gary Graham

Nancy Pelosi, having renamed the Public Option, the ‘Consumer Option,’ triumphantly trotted out this morning the Hose version of the Health Care Reform Bill, now called The Affordable American Health Care Bill.   (“Affordable” – what does that mean, exactly?  Affordable to whom?)   But then Steny Hoyer proclaimed the process of crafting the bill the most open, transparent process he’s seen in over thirty years in Congress. (Really??)   And finally, the President followed up on Teleprompters to announce that finally we have a bill that will cover the 36 million uninsured, not cost the taxpayers anything extra, improve the quality of our health-care system, and bring down the costs of health care.  Speaker Pelosi assured us that this bill represents the principles of  “…opportunity, choice, competition, and innovation.”

How can you tell when they’re lying?    Their lips are moving.

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They think you’re stupid.   It’s understandable that they should think that, because though they may on occasion listen to you, they never really hear you.  Hence, the only frame of reference for feedback on their incredibly absurd redistributive ideas, tax-and-spend proposals and unprecedented treasury-busting health care take-over bills…comes from their own constituents, the Democrats.  Whoops and hollers, cheers and laughter, nods, smiles, enthusiastic ‘yes-we-cans!’… as they serve up yet another heaping portion of socialist slop you’ll be expected to grab your ankles and pay for.  They think you’re stupid.

As the entire Democratic Party has now been fully commandeered by the hard Left, I wrestle daily with the following quandary:  Are they evil?  Or merely dense?  (more…)

Brian Ross

Pork Flu: H1N1 Offers Harrowing Preview of ObamaCare

by Brian Ross

Long-time listener, first-time blogger…

Back in April, Vice President Biden uttered dire warnings about catching Swine Flu in subways and commercial airplanes.  Per the usual pattern, the White House quickly apologized for “Amtrak Joe’s” remarks.  But now, just a few months later, the President also has declared a national emergency.  The H1N1 is spreading, and instead of 120 million expected doses, only 11 million shipped last week. In a few weeks, the vaccine may become widely available, but it hasn’t yet.  Even the Obama children reportedly haven’t received the vaccine (although I hope they get immunized if that’s what their family decides).  

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Balboa Park, The United States of America

Personally, I think the Swine Flu hysteria is a bit over-hyped.  But on the other hand, I’d rather not get sick if I can avoid it.  This year is particularly important for my family because my wife is pregnant with identical twins.  That type of pregnancy comes with risks already, and the H1N1 can be rough on expectant mothers.  So, after doing our research, we decided she would get immunized at the first opportunity, which was this past week.  In the process, we saw one possible future outcome of health care “reform” – rationing.  (more…)

John T. Simpson

On Teabagging and Other Oral Servitudes

by John T. Simpson

This past April 15, as a half-million Tea Partiers hit the streets of America to protest the insane tax-and-spend policies of the Obama administration, a new epithet entered the American lexicon, and it was a beauty: “teabagger.” It was both an epithet and a double entendre you just couldn’t top, given the tea bag’s symbolism of the old Boston Tea Party and the anti-tax movement of today. In one fell swoop, a passionate movement was reduced to a perversion of passion: the dunking of one person’s scrotum into another person’s mouth. They got us. Big Time. And it’s everywhere now. Can’t get away from it. Even ABC’s George Stephanopoulos is using it now.

Credit where credit is due, and let’s face it. We Americans, right, left or center, take a churlish pride in a good slam dunk epithet. Not the hardcore racial third rail stuff, mind you. Just the playful sort. You know. Moonbat. Libtard. Tinfoil hat. In fact, tinfoil hat kind of backfired on Righties. Originally used to denigrate Lefties who adhered to psychotic conspiracy theories like 9/11 Truth, the term was embraced in full by the far Left as demonstrated by Markos Moulitsas’ Tinfoil Hat KOS conventions, smashing successes which attracted major left-leaning LibDem politicians over the past few years. (more…)

Steven Crowder

Lonewolf Diaries: Leftists Hate Your Right to Free Speech

by Steven Crowder

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I know, I know, at first glance, the title may seem like I’m blowing things out of proportion. After all, Fox News is an isolated incident, right? Wrong. This is just another leg in a multi-pronged approach from the Obama administration to stifle dissent. (I just used some big words — which is out of character, I know — but go with me on this one.) Am I the only one who sees this as a wind of attacks looking to ultimately culminate into a “Fairness Doctrine” storm?

  1. “Those forwarding falsehoods against the health care bill” must be reported.
  2. “’Racists’ must be silenced.”
  3. “Opinion journalism masquerading as news” must not be given legitimacy, or equal access.
  4. David Axelrod: “We won’t treat Fox News that way, and you ought not treat them that way.”

This was the administration’s equivalent to the schoolyard bully’s call for a “PILE ON!!” (more…)

Evan Sayet

The ‘Me Generation’: A Generation of Thieves

by Evan Sayet

My generation – the “Me Generation” – and those like us have stolen every last penny from our parent’s savings accounts (Social Security).   We’ve used that money to make ourselves appear successful and to vote ourselves more and more things we claimed to be “entitled” to.

When that money ran out, those of us who followed the mantra we were taught in the Leftist run public schools, “If it feels good, do it,” simply stole our children’s money, mortgaging their future for our personal comforts.  We’ve borrowed so much against their account that the numbers now are written in trillions – with each child born burdened with tens of thousands of dollars in debt – money we spent on ourselves — the moment they enter the world.

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Now, with no more to steal from our parents or our children, many of us are demanding that we receive deeply discounted health-care services.  It’s something, we argue that we’re entitled to (for no other reason than that we’ve graced the world with our presence. )

The problem is that, forcing insurance companies to write bad policies – to take in in premiums far less than what they’ll have to dole out for the aging Boomers’ growing medical conditions – is untenable.  In fact, it is exactly the same formula these same Leftists used to force banks to make bad loans because they felt that everyone of their generation was “entitled” to own a house.

But the Boomers have a plan! (more…)

Joseph C. Phillips

What is Pornographic? What is Hip?

by Joseph C. Phillips

What exactly does “affordable” mean?

A very good friend of mine has lately taken me to task for my opposition to a single payer, universal medical coverage. She argues that she is one of those the president speaks of when describing Americans that do not have “affordable” health insurance. She has a pre-existing condition and coverage is expensive. When I point out that while the cost of her coverage may be high it is certainly affordable (in that she is managing to pay for it) she rejects the argument on the basis that the high cost eats into other equally important expenses. When pressed to define exactly how much an affordable health insurance plan would cost her answer sounds an awful lot like what some folks refer to as free. Like many Americans her ideal is that she should receive the most comprehensive coverage – care for illnesses minor and major — for little or nothing; health coverage is, after all, a right.

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Former Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart wrote of hard-core pornography: “I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced within that shorthand description; and perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so. But I know it when I see it.”  The position that policy and law should not be based on reason, fact and/or moral certainty, but on the infallible conclusions of judges or political leaders was later rejected by Stewart as untenable; no surprise, then, that it has been adopted as a cornerstone of progressive politics. (more…)

John Nolte

Russell Simmons: God Will Destroy Us If We Don’t Follow Barack

by John Nolte

Over at HuffPo, Russell Simmons has let go of the wheel and bounced off a guard rail. His apocalyptic melodrama sounds like the typical Hollywood cliche of a Christian right-winger. But these lefties are all about projection, so that’s to be expected.

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A normal celebucrat post has a pull quote or two you can highlight and make sport of, but Simmons is all pull quote — a bonanza of crazy — so where to begin? Hey, I know, let’s play a game. Here are ten quotes, nine are from Simmons, one is not. Can you pick out the lunacy that doesn’t belong? 

1. The president’s honest attempt to promote world peace through the same methods taught by Jesus Christ are met with contempt by a country whose collective consciousness is extraordinarily fearful and at times, sacrilegious. (more…)

Leigh Scott

Debating Leftists is Like Debating Charles Manson

by Leigh Scott

Keith Olbermann’s recent hour-long commentary was quite revealing.  Like Michael Moore’s “capitalism hasn’t done anything for me” comment, the outpouring of support and sympathy for serial pedophile and admitted rapist Roman Polanski, and President Obama’s shenanigans at the U.N. and G-20, it drove home a simple, powerful point…

These people don’t know what they are talking about.

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They do not know their kiesters from a hole in the ground.  They are a few fries short of a happy meal and a few cards short of a full deck.  Their phasers are permanently set on “clueless.”

Once you come to this realization, as many of us have, you are forced to approach their ideas and spokespeople from a position of reality.  Not from some sanctimonious position of civility and “debate.” (more…)

Frank DeMartini

Hopefully ObamaCare Will ‘Die Quickly’

by Frank DeMartini

Representative Joe Wilson shouts in the House Chamber to President Obama during a speech on Health Care Reform, “You lie,” and is forced to apologize to the President directly and compelled to apologize in the House where the incident occurred.  He chooses only to apologize to the President.  This did not make him many friends in the Democratic Caucus.  They could not bully him into a formal apology in the Chamber.  What happens next, the Democrat House votes to rebuke him in a meaningless resolution.  Of course, the vote is along party lines.

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A few weeks later, Representative Alay Grayson of Florida, who also happens to be a Democrat, says while debating health hare reform on the House Floor:

“If you get sick, America, the Republican health care plan is this: Die quickly. That’s right. The Republicans want you to die quickly if you get sick.”  (more…)

Michael Wilson

Adam McKay, Care to Debate Health Care Reform?

by Michael Wilson

Dear Adam,

We’ve gone back and forth this week, with me writing here at Big Hollywood and you Tweeting responses. The lastest from @GhostPanther came directly to @Wilson_Michael and you asked me a question. I have an answer, but I think there’s a better way to have this conversation. And that’s what this should be… a conversation that takes place within the arena of ideas.

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Adam McKay

This is important stuff and I’m fascinated by how two fellow Americans can see the world so differently. We probably both think we believe in freedom and liberty. We likely both think that we should take care of the poor. I know we both believe everyone should get the very best health care possible. How we get there while keeping our nation free is up for debate.

So let’s do it. Let’s have the debate. I challenge you to debate me on health care reform. (more…)

Ben Shapiro

White House Creates ACORN for the Arts

by Ben Shapiro

Over the last week, Big Hollywood and Big Government have been extensively covering the August 10 conference call between the National Endowment for the Arts and a group of artists – a call on which the artists were encouraged to support President Obama’s agenda, with the tacit promise that they would be handsomely rewarded with government grants.  The NEA representative on the call was then-Communications Director of the NEA Yosi Sergant.

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Now we have new evidence that the White House itself has been using its sway to recruit artists – not just to support President Obama’s “volunteerism” initiatives, but to support basic planks of his political agenda, including health care.  In fact, the White House has been tapping its extragovernmental political allies to work with artists with the tacit promise that NEA funds will be in the offing for those who join the Obama Administration political program. (more…)

Jon David

Just Act: Response to Will Ferrell

by Jon David
Recently I had a conversation with Big Government contributor Maura Flynn in which we discussed the gravity of the health care crisis in this country. We didn’t necessarily agree on every issue. But what  became clear, was that we became soberly aware of what we didn’t know.  What resulted from this conversation is the 60 second video below.. Please remove your partisan hat, and take a moment to view this. It’s important….for all of us.
 
Written & Directed by Jon David, Produced by Maura Flynn, Edited by Andrew Marcus
 
Alfonzo Rachel

Response to Leftie Celebs On Healthcare

by Alfonzo Rachel


Jason Killian Meath

Conan to Obama: Honeymoon’s Over

by Jason Killian Meath


The New York Times wrote during campaign 2008 that late night comics were having a hard time cracking jokes about Barack Obama.  This year, President Obama was treated with kid gloves. Leno, Letterman and Conan largely stood in a cone of silence when it came to prodding the Prez.  But after scandals and bumbled policy initiatives, the once-airtight Obama spin control has given way to a White House spinning out-of-control.  Late Night TV finally rises to the occasion — and the honeymoon is officially over. (more…)

Big Hollywood

Another Spoof on the MoveOn/Will Ferrell Health Care Vid

by Big Hollywood


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Michael Wilson

UPDATE: Director Adam McKay Strikes Back

by Michael Wilson

I have apparently raised the ire of Adam McKay, the rich and powerful film director who brought us “Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy” and “Step Brothers.” In a Tweet on Tuesday, McKay says that my last article (about Will Ferrell decrying insurance executives) was “sub-moronic.” He also goes on in that Tweet to say that insurance executives kill 20,000 people a year by denying claims on purpose. My question to McKay: “Are you kidding me?”

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Adam McKay

While Adam McKay has been so good at his job at times that he’s left me rolling on the floor unable to breathe, and I think Ferrell is funny as hell, I am astonished that a self-righteous multimillionaire like McKay would tell you that you have to do something by force that he won’t do by choice.

That is cynicism in its purest form. McKay presumes that people are inherently bad and that they must be forced to do what is “good” or “noble” or “decent.” He presumes that human beings are hardwired to be un-compassionate and uncaring. Cynicism is a lie and it’s easy to convince others to be cynics right along with you. You can go on hating your fellow humans and you can all be miserable together, searching for a villain to direct your hate toward (like a CEO). (more…)

Michael Wilson

Why Does Will Ferrell Hoard His Money While Children Suffer?

by Michael Wilson

Will Ferrell and the fine folks over at “Funny or Die” are picking the low hanging fruit once again. This time they’re going after nameless, faceless “Insurance Executives” in a “satirical” PSA about government-run insurance. But the real comedy is watching a bunch of multimillionaires who do make-believe for a living opine about other people making too much money.

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I’m a big fan of comedy. I’m a stand-up junkie, growing up on late-night HBO comedy specials (I’d seen everything Carlin had done by age 11). I got into film making because Kevin Smith made it accessible through foul, filthy and hilarious dialogue that has always hit me where I live. And I don’t believe anything is off limits. It just strikes me as strange that people with extraordinary talent like Ferrell and company would be so off-the-mark with a piece that dives into the political world so deeply. (more…)

Joseph C. Phillips

Health Care Analogies

by Joseph C. Phillips

It is good that the President has ceased attempting to sell his public option health care initiative on the strength of a comparison to the United States Postal Service. Americans will not soon be convinced of the economic viability of an expansion of public healthcare when it is compared to an entity on track to lose $7 billion this year. This past summer the Government accountability office put the postal service on its high risk list because of its “increasingly shaky financial footing,” and in the spring Post Master General John Potter asked Congress for permission to cut delivery service back to 5 days per week and close 700 offices nation wide. This is not the sort of talk that inspires confidence that a government takeover of the healthcare industry is the answer to our fiscal tribulations.

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It is bad that the President, demonstrating what can only be described as intellectual density, has chosen instead to compare his public option to our system of state colleges and universities. This is particularly ironic given the fact that the cost of higher education has been skyrocketing for years and has in fact outpaced that of healthcare. Even more ironic is that according to the College Board’s annual tuition survey, the rate of growth of the price of public 4 year colleges has been faster than at private 4 year colleges; a trend that has persisted for 3 decades. (more…)

Ernie Mannix

The Ghost Of Ronald Reagan

by Ernie Mannix

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“Let’s take a break fellas, I am sick of being in damage control mode. I gotta kick it for a few minutes” President Obama complained .

“Okay everyone, let’s leave the President alone for a bit of a rest” announces the President’s chief of staff, then whispering into his bosses ear he adds: “I think in a few days, our pals at CBS, NBC and ABC will have some surprises for them and this onslaught will stop. It’s just real tough trying to get anything on this Big Hollywood/Big Government bunch, they’re all pretty clean, even that nut Mannix.” (more…)